Hey Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I hope your day was blessed walking with the Lord in joy. Though the world gets further away from how we might wish it to be on one level hopefully this drives people to Christ. Matt and Tyler each prayed with me to receive Jesus today. Please pray they grow in the Lord and in their faith. Their stories are in my journal entry below if you have the time.

Matt was finishing some lunch in the Cafeteria and said he’d answer some questions after he asked and I told him what it was about. He was a solid looking dude, an outdoorsman, mentioned his father hunts. He had kind of a “Wreck it Ralph” look crossed with a dock worker with a mop of stick straight blonde hair pushing out from under a SOX ball cap. He wore a blue/grey T-shirt and jeans. He looked athletic and it turned out he had just finished a season of baseball. He thought he might want travel to see the Holy Land as a relative had recently been there. When I asked him what he would say to God if he died and was asked why he should be let into Heaven he said, “I don’t know what I’d say. I feel like if there’s something that I should be let into the kingdom of God [for] it’s no longer in my power to change. I know some people say as long as you accept Jesus as Lord and Savior and others say if you sin at all you are not going to be let in, so then no one is. I think as long as you make a point to serve, your best, God it will come around to help you out.” He said he couldn’t say how likely it was he would go to Heaven but he thought he might have a 50/50 shot. He listened to the Gospel closely and accepted the points. At the end I asked if he wanted to be forgiven believing Jesus was God had died for his sins and rose from the dead or thought something else. “I’d want to be forgiven,” he replied. I said there was a prayer he could pray to ask for forgiveness and for God to live inside him and explained the prayer and living by the Spirit’s power “inside out” and then asked again if he’d want to pray, “You wanna go for it?” “Sure,” he replied and he prayed to receive Jesus. I then said the likelihood he would get into Heaven now was 100% trusting in the righteousness gave him a Bible study then and asked if he wanted a book. “Is it a small one?” I said it was just topics and Bible verses and gave him Bible Promises for You after showing it to him and him saying he’d take it. I wrote his name and the date and “forgiven” in the front. I said I would keep him in my prayers for the next year until Spring and then one year after. He seemed grateful and we talked some more about the times and what might happen. Showed me a picture of a dirt bike he inherited from his grandfather he’d worked on some. He gave me some small engine advice and then had to head to class so we said good bye. Great guy to talk to.

I stayed in the cafeteria and circled around and then asked Tyler if he would do a survey for a Bible Study group. A black guy, he had narrow, kind of classic shaped face and a 2 inch afro. He had just a here and there growth of beard on the sides and a pencil width mustache, chin beard. He wore a wine colored puffy coat over a grey/blue hoodie and black pants. We realized (talking after) I had asked him before to talk but he had been busy and I sad sorry to bother him and he said, “It turned out good, everything happens for a reason.” He had a couple bites out of a sandwich. He said he’d just gone to a Bible study and felt like he was ok. Usually I just let it go at that point but I asked him, “You wanna just answer the one big metaphysical Question?” “OK” he replied and I asked him, “Say you are walking down the road and you get hit by a bus so you are dead and you stand before God and he says, ‘why should I let you into Heaven?’ what would you say?” “Wait what?” He said. So I gave him a grin and shortened it to, “You died and God asks you: ‘Why should I let you into Heaven?’” “I kept his word” He replied after thinking a moment. I said, “The Bible says something a little different would you want to hear what the Bible says in little booklet? Or not so much?” “OK,” he said and I began to go through the Gospel with him. I said God wanted to live inside him but first He had to take away our sin. He did not seem to know what Jesus had done to take away his sin. I explained how the Blood of Christ cleansed him in 1John 1:7 and then God could live in Him. I explained how God got paid by the perfect life in Christ for the all the damage we had done that we owed God something perfect for but could not pay and the righteousness of Christ to our credit. When I had finished the Gospel I asked if he would want to be forgiven of if he thought something else. He said he wanted to be forgiven and so I said there was a prayer he could pray and talked him through it. I asked if he wanted to pray and he said, “Yeah,” and prayed to receive Jesus. I explained living “inside out” by the Spirit’s power. I said the likelihood he would now go to Heaven was 100%. He said he had been to a 7^th day Adventist Bible study just before lunch. I explained they were probably right that the Church should not have changed the Sabbath Day. There was no suggestion in the New Testament that they should do so but that I had never thought of Sunday as a Sabbath anyway. He agreed he had not either it was just a day he went to church. I explained in the New Testament in Hebrews 4 Jesus is our Sabbath rest. We are also the Temple of God in the New Testament. So we are at the temple everyday resting in Jesus, so every day is the Sabbath. “But they are not keeping the Sabbath anyway,” I pointed out.  I asked if he knew that one of the most basic things that was not allowed on the Sabbath was to kindle a fire, get it going from cold wood. He said he knew that. I explained the internal combustion engine to him. I pointed out cars effectively run on gas the user has sparked into flame. They use a machine to do it but they have in fact kindled a fire, a small explosion in the cylinders,  just to drive to Church. I said I have never met anyone who says they keep the Sabbath say they left their car running since the day before the Sabbath. But that is what they would have to do. These groups have never even thought about it. We talked some more about the Christian life and how Jesus fulfilled the Law. I gave him Bible Promises for You. I wrote his name and the date and “forgiven” in the front. I gave him a Bible study also. He was very grateful and thanked me a few times and I said sure and I would see him in Heaven and I headed out.

So Thanks for your prayers for the ministry and for evangelism today if you had a chance. God truly blessed.

In Him,

Bob